It feels weird to be on holiday, it's so long since I've had an actual break; there's so much that I want and need to get done this week before I go to Edinburgh, but really all I can think of doing is relaxing by sitting down and reading or watching films. That's not all I want to do, but at the minute it's all I feel like, that and catching up with friends.
I always find it strange catching up with people that you haven't seen for a long time. No matter how happy you are to see them, no matter how good a friend they might be or how close you once were, there nearly always comes a point where the conversation runs out. There are exceptions of course, those really close friends whose friendship time doesn't dilute, who you can see after months or years and talk to as if nothing happened. For the most part though I've found that's not the case.
It is a shame that as time moves on and our lives get busier we find it harder and harder to keep up old friendships. We get new friends, but I always feel sad when I realise that another month has gone by and I haven't heard from R, or think about how long it has been since I heard from C. We like to think that things like the occasional text, the odd email, or using Facebook makes up for it, but it's not the same as sharing a cake in a coffeeshop, sending a long letter or calling someone out of the blue and saying "How are you?"
We have PC solutions, healthcare solutions - my local supermarket recently had an aisle labelled "Italian meal solutions" - but despite everything we throw at it, all the technology and timesaving can't do more than make a half-arsed attempt at keeping friendships alive. For that, even in this day and age, we still need time, work, and most importantly, the human touch. And I hope we always will.
I wonder, however, if all this technology can do something to keep old classmates from finding me on Facebook?
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